Of Light and Shadow
by Ariana Raven
Summary: The goodbye was unequivocal. The Mirror of Twilight is dust. Yet, as the former Hero enters a hard-won peacetime, he finds himself missing his absent partner in crime and desperate for a way to see her again. Returning to Twilight, Midna faces regret - and the staggering responsibilities of rule. Meanwhile, a storm is brewing that may require their combined strength to weather...
1. Home

_Prologue: Home_

* * *

She would never see him again.

It had been three months since the mirror shattered behind her as her feet, for the first time in nearly a year, met the familiar terrain of her homeworld. For the first time in nearly a year, she was back in her own realm, not as a cursed imp, but as its guardian, savior, and princess. And for the first time in her entire life, it wasn't where she wanted to be at all. In this world she had nearly died to protect, she was a stranger.

Over the course of three months in her own kingdom, she unwillingly came to realize why it was that twilight no longer felt like the place where she belonged. The knowledge seared her to her core, forced her to feel the things she had been trying to shut the door on since she'd left home and come back to the land of her birth. It cut her open and let the truth bleed into her veins like liquid fire; each heartbeat drove it deeper into every molecule of her being.

Home was the smell of forest and leather and damp chain mail set out to dry by the fire when darkness came. Home was the feel of her nose buried deep in green cotton, the strong lithe arms that relaxed around her when sleep came upon them, yet still held her tightly all the way until morning. Home was the sound of his breathing, whether harsh and tight or slow and deep. Running breaths, sleeping breaths, fighting growls and wounded gasps, she measured time and distances by the sound of his silence, and that was home. Home was the look in his eyes, whether those of a man or a beast, the contrasting integrity and ferocity, and a noble determination that she would have scoffed at previously, but which never seemed more admirable a trait than when it was thus reflected back at her in his open gaze.

Home was the way she had come to know exactly which maneuvers he would use before he performed them, the way muscle slid under skin and over bone, stroke following stroke as she saw them in her mind's eye. The way they wove a deadly dance around their enemies, who fell like so many blades of grass at the point of tooth or sword, was home. Home was the way they had grown together from wounded animals to a force to be reckoned with, nigh unstoppable, the two of them like an army in themselves. Home was the way they kept going even after they had failed time and time again, and eventually won everything they had sought out to recover or gain.

Home was the way they had faced down their last battle together as if it was just another adventure, with the unspoken knowledge that each would die for the other if need be, the mutual resolve to lay down everything they had left to give if that was what was needed to restore their own and each other's worlds to peace and prosperity.

Home was the way she'd made good on that promise by sending him away at the last moment, both for his own protection and to preserve the last pieces of the Triforce in case their power was needed. Home was the way she'd tried in vain to finish what he had started. And, during the final resolution of the conflict, it was the way he had ended it when she hadn't been able to.

Home was the expression on his face after he had lost and found her again for the second time. Home was the way he knew her even in a form he'd never seen before, the moment their gazes met.

Home was the smile he had given her, hopeful and trusting, with a warm hint of a bond she didn't dare even now to name, right before she had shattered the one thing holding them together.

Home was the way she would spend the rest of her long, long life regretting that decision.

For her, home was Link, and always would be.

Deep in the sightless black that was night in her realm, the Twilight Princess finally broke, burying her face in her hands and shedding her first tears after three months of silent endurance. Meanwhile, worlds away and high above the clouds, the first snowflake began to fall.

* * *

_A/N: Yay, new stuff! New cover, new summary - extended summary below, because the original summary was much better than the one I got after I chopped it down to size for the frankly stupid word limit on this site. It should skew the word count a bit, but that's okay because, if you're new here (or even if you're not) it should give you some idea of what to expect. 99% of this chapter used to be its own little ficlet, but has hence been incorporated into my plan for a larger story which will focus on the consequences of Link and Midna's separation as well as their eventual reunion - though it'll be a long and hard road before we get there. I hope to have you along for the journey._

**_Full Summary:_**

**_The goodbye was unequivocal. The Mirror of Twilight is dust, the last physical link between light and shadow broken beyond repair. Yet, as the former Hero enters the beginnings of a hard-won peacetime, he finds himself missing his absent partner in crime and desperate for a way to see her again._**

**_Though Ganondorf's demise seemed the end of the evil that threatened both realms, the destruction of the Mirror may foreshadow a dawn as tainted as the royal family Midna finds herself dealing with upon her bittersweet return to Twilight._**

**_Unknown to each, a storm is brewing that may require their combined strength to weather, if either hopes to survive and to protect the worlds they once fought for._**

_(Post-game, eventual MidLink pairing. __Cover art is mine, made with Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 and a few screenshots from an HD walkthrough of Twilight Princess.)_


	2. Consequences

_Chapter One: Consequences_

* * *

Somewhere near the heart of the light world, north of Ordon and south of King Ralis' domain, a quiet phenomenon was beginning its journey from the bottom cloud layer to the surface of the earth, there to descend without warning on the kingdom of Hyrule and its surrounding provinces. The first flurries reached ground level at about two in the morning, settling on the roofs of houses, coating the streets of Castle Town in a mantle of freezing cold. It crowned the heads of fountains and outdoor statues with glistening white and wrapped the land in velvet silence, so that barely a sound could be heard no matter where you stood.

The inhabitants of said realm, however, were unaware of this event taking place, as most of them were sleeping. One in particular was not, and so he was perhaps the only member of the audience at this opening concert of the season's symphony orchestra. Not the best spectator, perhaps, as he paid little heed to the tiny heralds of winter that pressed gentle feather touches to his exposed face and fingers, contact with his body heat transforming each flake to water almost instantly. He seemed to be in a bit of a hurry to finish saddling the horse who was stamping her hooves on the frosty ground in an effort to improve circulation to her extremities.

Link growled low in frustration as his numb fingers slipped once again while attempting to buckle Epona's bridle. There had been a time when this process would not even have been necessary, but his warping days were behind him and the Hero of Light was forced to travel step by step, the way regular mortals did. No more zipping from place to place, crossing dimensions, hitting up Snowpeak for soup and a snowboarding race with the yetis, and still making it to Lake Hyrule in time for an after-dinner swim with King Ralis of the Zoras. Not that he'd ever had time for social meals and recreational swimming in his save-the-world days, but he had to admit to entertaining several fancies involving what life would be like after he was through.

He would not have imagined it like this. In fact, it was that particular keen sense of disillusionment which had prompted his midnight ride in the first place, as it had done on previous occasions. Having finally finished preparing Epona for the directionless journey ahead, he was now in the midst of galloping across Hyrule Field with no particular end in mind, barely aware of the wind biting through his tunic and whipping snowflakes across his vision. Inside, Link was in another place entirely, and this made him impervious not only to the weather, but to everything else the cold and the night threw across his heedless course.

He didn't see the river rushing up to meet his horse's hooves. He didn't even flinch as the faultlessly obedient mare plunged, on his careless direction, into the swollen tide and both of them were deluged in freezing water. They were climbing up the far bank before the facts of their situation even hit him, bringing with them a dull, belated spike of worry that faded as soon as it came.

He was in a dangerous place inside, almost too far gone to care.

Telma was awakened from deep sleep by an intermittent knock at her bar's front door, barely heavy enough to register in her ear; indeed, had it not been followed by another within a few seconds, she might not have woken up at all. Wrapped in a dressing gown and in no little ill humor, she opened the door a minute or two later to the alarming sight of the Hero soaked and staggering on her front doorstep, his lips blue with cold.

"Epona," he coughed without preamble, clutching the doorpost for support.

"Link!" Telma exclaimed, horrified. "Honey, what's happened?"

"Went for a ride," he explained, barely able to speak in complete sentences around his violently chattering teeth. "Fell in the river. Snowing outside. I'm fine. Epona's outside in the courtyard. Can you see to her?"

"Not until you get out of those clothes and into something dry," Telma said firmly, grabbing him by the shoulders and hauling him into the warm indoors. "'Went for a ride.' I'll give you 'went for a ride,' and no mistake. You'll be the death of me, boy, if you don't end up killing yourself through sheer reckless behavior first."

Shoving a set of dry men's clothing at him (one of the spares she kept on hand for the occasional guest who stayed the night) along with a few more well-deserved admonishments, Telma headed outside to see to the ill-used horse standing in her courtyard. By the time she returned, Link was mostly dried off, and insisted on knowing how Epona was faring.

"She's fine, no thanks to you," Telma assured him. "'Went for a ride.' A swim, more like! In the middle of a snowstorm! Anyhow, I put her up with a neighbor who has a few stalls built onto his inn, though I had to pay a far sight more than the travelers who had their mounts there. He didn't like being woken in the middle of a winter's night any more than I did, and when he saw your horse, he wanted to know what on Farore's green earth I'd done to her!"

"Was she—" Link began, but Telma cut him off.

"He and his stable hands got her dried off and warm in two shakes of a Bulblin's club, and there didn't seem to be any lasting harm done. No thanks to you," she added once again.

"I'm s—"

"You had better be. Now," she snapped, sitting down across from him with a particularly fearsome scowl. "Explain yourself, and I'll have none of this 'went for a ride' business. Tell me what happened and why, from beginning to end. No evasions or I'll have your hide, and believe me, dark forces will look tame next to what I've got in store for you."

"Um," said Link, but got no further before she was off again.

"Really, what in Din's name were you thinking? Nayru's love, boy. This is so unlike you!"

"I know," he mumbled contritely. "I was…I'm sorry."

Head bowed, hunched in a small wooden chair by the fireside, the Hero's aspect was much more bedraggled than Telma was used to; even ragged with the wounds of a hundred different fights, the fate of several worlds resting on his shoulders, he had always seemed somehow invulnerable before now. It was something about his eyes, usually so piercing and intense, and in the set of his shoulders. Haunted at best, at worst defeated. In spite of herself, Telma's heart went out to the miserable figure in front of her who was, after all, barely more than eighteen years old.

"Aw, honey, don't look like that," she begged, putting a reassuring hand on his back. "Surely it's not all that bad."

"I hear her, Telma," Link said abruptly, raising his head to look her directly in the eye. "All the time, calling me. Searching. I can't even go to sleep without hearing her voice in my head. Or sometimes I see myself doing all the things we did, but alone, without her to help me, and I die. Every time. And Ganondorf wins. It's like my mind's way of reminding me that I would—that all of us would be dead or worse if not for her. What if something happens, like _he_ said it would, and I can't stop it on my own?"

"Link, honey, I'm sure—"

"But that's not the worst part," he continued, as if she hadn't even spoken. "Sometimes I dream I'm the one looking, scouring everywhere we went and more places besides, walking the whole world over and I still can't find her. And then I wake up, and it's like I wasn't even dreaming. Because it's true. I'm looking, and I can't find her, and I _need_ her, Telma. Never mind the light world or the twilight, _I_ need her."

He stopped speaking and put his head in his hands. The Triforce mark on the left one looked almost transparent, an illusion created by the firelight. A few long moments slipped by in silence.

"Honey, I don't really know what to tell you," Telma said slowly. "You two did a lot together. You saved the whole world, and each other to boot, several times over. Bonds like that aren't meant to be severed in a matter of a few seconds…break something that strong that quickly, and both ends get all twisted up. They get warped on the inside as well as out. I think that's what's been the matter with you lately, and if I know anything, you can bet it's happening to her, too. I don't know Midna very well, but I can at least tell you that she's probably even worse off than you are."

Link was silent, not the worst reaction to her words, but not the one Telma had been hoping for, either.

"You should do something about it," she prompted. "Something big and heroic and dangerous, but"—she was suddenly stern again—"not a midnight gallop through a river in the middle of a snowstorm. Think of what you've put poor Epona through, not to mention me. Now, you're going to bed, and no arguments!"

There were none. Link did meekly as he was instructed and, having been installed on a spare mattress near the warm hearth, seemed within minutes to be asleep. Telma, however, knew he was not, because she could see his hands clutch into fists beneath the blankets, and occasionally his eyes would flicker open to stare up at the rafters on her ceiling.

Soon, however, she herself was back in her own bed and drifting into sleep, in spite of the troubled thoughts which had now taken up residence in the particular corners of her mind she usually set aside for worrying about things she couldn't help. One of the last thoughts that occurred to her before she fell unconscious was an especially sad understanding of Link's situation.

Telma was an optimist, but privately, she had always thought that most heroes seemed more frail in their quiet moments than other folk did. Perhaps this was because, unlike the more ordinary people of the world, heroes never did get happy endings of their own.

* * *

_A/N: One of the themes I'm most interested in exploring in this fic is Link's vulnerability. When you play the game, you get pretty absorbed in the storyline, but how often do you stop to think about the fact that the character you're playing is only seventeen or so? Fantasy games can get away with stuff like that, I know - but when I think about it, I feel like saving the world all the time has to be pretty tough on this guy, who always seems to draw destiny's short straw, but doesn't often stop to worry about his own happiness in between quests or even afterwards. It's enough to make anyone bitter, but you rarely see any of that in Link, I guess because he's supposed to be this really pure, internally good, altruistic character. However, he is also human, and that's one of the biggest things I like to bring out in his character when I'm writing him, this human side that kind of does want a happy ending for himself when all's said and done. I feel like this essential human-ness, this fragility, is as much a part of courage as anything else, and I hope to have more opportunities to juxtapose these traits in the chapters to come._

_Also, Telma. I love Telma and I've always felt like she would give really good advice about love or monster-bashing or the care of horses, or just pretty much anything, so I had a lot of fun telling part of this chapter from her perspective._


	3. Another Age

_Chapter Two: Another Age_

* * *

Link came to with a headache, but not otherwise altered from his state of being the night before. Grief was like that, he was discovering—it wasn't like anything else in that it never really went away. It was there when you went to sleep and there when you woke up.

Getting slowly to his feet so as not to fuel the throbbing in his temples, he rolled off the mattress by the embers of last night's fire and, following his usual morning routine, went to look out of the window. Not that it was really morning anymore, he noted. The sun was as high in the sky as it ever got in the wintertime, and the snows of the previous night had stopped falling, leaving the inhabitants of Castle Town with mountains of brilliant white covering their parish's every surface as far as the eye could see. Most of them were the pragmatic sort, and so had set to work shoveling it out of the way of the main thoroughfares. After all, as far as they knew, the snow would never melt on its own.

Telma herself was out in her courtyard at the moment, red-cheeked as she simultaneously shoveled snow with gusto and carried on a lively conversation with the street vendors up the way. When she saw Link watching from the window, she gave him a grin and a wink, then conveyed via a series of vigorous beckoning motions an invitation for him to join her at her task. He nodded and held up five fingers. Five minutes, and he'd be there.

He could take a few lessons from Telma, Link decided as he swiftly got dressed and made ready to meet her in the courtyard. Less wallowing in the cold and more shoveling it out of the way, well equipped with a positive mindset and an inability to take no for an answer. After all, plans and quests and impossible conundrums were in his line of work. He just needed a purpose again.

For the moment, that purpose was nothing more or less than the business of shoveling snow. From the moment he exited the warm bar into the crisp winter's afternoon, Link put every bit of grit and enthusiasm he possessed into the work at hand, and found himself enjoying the exertion and the company of the townspeople. Most of them were initially awed by the unexpected presence of the fabled Hero in their midst—Link's reputation had only grown in the months since his final battle with Ganondorf, which anyone who had seen the collapse of the castle and its subsequent rebuilding knew about in full exaggerated detail. Naturally, most of his feats and personal qualities had been embellished upon by more than one source, so many were surprised (and a few disappointed) by his actual stature and personage. The details of his quest had similarly gone askew in the telling. He found himself having to explain over and over that, no, he had not fought three fearsome dragons at once with no weapons at his disposal, it had only been one and he had used his sword, among other implements.

During several intervals in the day's labor, he caught himself glancing distractedly up at the scaffolding covering most of the surface of Hyrule Castle, new stones rising steadily up from the rubble to stretch once again to the corners of the sky. An idea was rapidly forming itself within his mind, and he couldn't stop considering it.

Link returned that evening to find most of the inhabitants of Ordon Village waiting for him. Talo was demanding to know where he'd been, Colin begging for details about the overnight adventures he'd been on, and Ilia questioning him closely about Epona's whereabouts. Most of them accepted his preoccupied answers, as Link's usual manner did tend to be more reserved than otherwise, and went back to their respective homes satisfied. Ilia was more difficult to dismiss.

"You say you went for a ride?" she frowned. "Early this morning? In the cold?"

"That's right," Link nodded, subtly avoiding Ilia's eyes as they reached the bottom of the ladder leading up to his house.

"And you left Epona at a place in Castle Town so she'd stay warm tonight?"

"I did." He was steadily growing more uncomfortable, frozen by the intensity of her expression. One hand fingered the rough wood of the ladder's fifth rung, itching to climb it with all haste and escape from her perceptive green eyes and pointed inquiries.

"And all this had nothing to do with other rides you've taken in the middle of the night, with no explanations given and an exhausted horse tied up next to your house in the morning for me to take care of?"

"N-nothing whatsoever."

"I. Don't. Believe you," Ilia stated matter-of-factly. Each word was punctuated with a hard poke to the middle of his chest.

"Agh!" he protested, leaning away from her assault. She stopped as soon as he met her gaze for the first time that night and, folding her arms across her chest, waited with raised eyebrows for him to speak.

Link sighed deeply, raking a frustrated hand through his blond bangs as he prepared himself to offer the honest explanation she deserved. "Look, Ilia…"

"Don't," she said sharply.

"…don't what?"

"Don't treat me like I'm bothering you, like you wish you could get rid of me, feed me some story to make me stop asking awkward questions. I'm sure whatever you've got to do this time is important and everything, but you can't just ignore the fact that you have friends who care about you. Me, Colin, and the rest of the village. Telma and the resistance, along with whoever you've got out there in the rest of the kingdom. You can't just ignore us, Link. What's the matter with you?"

She had been almost shouting the entire time, but on the last few syllables her voice became hoarse and quavering; she backed away and rubbed at her eyes with a shaking hand. Link caught at it and held it in his, sudden remorse stinging the pit of his stomach.

"A lot," he replied. His own voice cracked slightly, echoing her aggrieved question. "And I'm sorry for all of it. I've been a mess and you've been cleaning it up without me even knowing. Thank you so much. And I'm sorry."

Still turned away, she watched him from the corner of her eye, as if deciding whether or not to accept his apology. He had, after all, been throwing a lot of them around lately.

"Okay," she said finally. "Just make sure you clean up your own messes from now on. And don't lie to me anymore."

Link started to nod, but broke off ruefully, staring at the ground while absently fingering the tail of his hat with his free hand. He hadn't exactly been open with her lately, and that mood had stretched not just over these past three months, but for so much longer. Since their last exchange before the end of his quest, when she'd given him the horse call, he had felt a distance stretch between the cracks of their intimate friendship like grass amid the stone of pavement pieces. Several things had seemed to fall into that void, a lot of them little pieces of information which had been somehow omitted from one conversation or another. It had just occurred to him that he hadn't even told Ilia about Midna—much less the details of their alliance, her involvement in his quest, her identity as princess of another world. He wasn't sure where to even begin.

Deciding to save that conversation for another day—a better day, when he'd had time to prove to her that he really meant to do better by all the people he loved—Link settled for drawing the girl who had been his closest friend into a hug that felt more like a goodbye than either of them was willing to admit. There had been a time when touching was like saying hello, but like the dwindling hour of twilight which was just now coming to a close, that phase was nearly over. They had now reached another age, an era of holding one another too long and not quite close enough as the sun fell lower behind the trees and shadows blended into night.

Ilia was the first to pull back, smiling as she openly dried the tears from her cheeks and wiped in vain at the dark spots some of them had left on his tunic. Their parting words were mundane things, vague arrangements to meet for a picnic in an indefinite location, at some unspecified future date. Both knew it wouldn't happen anytime soon, as Ilia's schedule had been almost entirely dominated for the past months by babysitting for Uli, making sure the goat barn was properly insulated at all times, and teaching Beth to weave. Still, there was comfort to be found in the making of plans. It was like a panacea for the acute responsibility of having allowed such moments, possibilities too precious and fragile to be stated, pass by with barely a word of protest.

Link stared absently after Ilia's retreating figure as it disappeared into the darkened village gate, one part of his mind still making sure she got back safely while the rest flew off to regions farther away from home. When he turned to climb up to his house, it was with a mind free of worrying about anything but the road before him. Tomorrow he would begin inquiry towards the matter which had consumed his thoughts since Telma first suggested it. Tonight, he would study and then sleep. After all, he needed his strength if he planned to accomplish anything towards making all this right again.

This much he knew for sure; what he wasn't yet aware of would fill volumes more than he'd have the chance to read through in just one night. More than that, they would fill the pages of his future. The path on which the Hero now set his unwary feet in the first steps of a longer journey would determine not only his own fate, but that of both worlds, for better or for worse.

* * *

_A/N: I am so sorry for this chapter. It sounds pretty much exactly like the previous two in tone and pacing; you can barely tell I was trying for a shift in the former. Also, it is five days later than the promised update; technically six, as I am still having problems with my internet and didn't manage to upload it until after midnight. I'm sure this does not seem at all like a promising turn of affairs, but I can also promise a definite improvement in the pacing and variety of future chapters. Chapter Three, after all, will be focusing on Midna as she deals with not only personal matters, but the current state of affairs in the Twilight Realm - which is less peaceful than usual, thanks to the political and economic aftermath of Zant's "reign." I plan to upload this one as soon as the 29th, which is technically today as I type this, but we'll call it tomorrow. _

_Thanks to all reviewers who've given me feedback and cautionary advice thus far - I find it incredibly amusing how our concerns regarding the typical failings of MidLink fics line up so closely. With Ilia in particular, I had already planned a lot of her and Link's relationship in this story with a mind to stay true to her in-game character rather than the typical Ilia you get with most ZeLink or MidLink fics, before I even read the reviews. So, yeah, it was pretty funny for me to see how very much on the same page we were. I think her character gets rather poor treatment more often than not; I hope I've done their relationship due credit with this chapter, as she doesn't show up very much in future ones. And don't worry, I'll lay off the angst eventually. *sheepish grin* Who knows, this story might get so freakin' happy, I may even need to change genres. _

_Anyhoo, thanks bunches to every single one of you reading this. I promise I'll treat you better from now on with the update stuff. ;)_


	4. The People's Princess

_Chapter Three: The People's Princess_

* * *

Dawn came earlier than usual the morning of the council meeting, the palace's Sols drawing energy in ever-increasing quantities due to the lengthening daytime period that accompanied the summer season. Midna, as usual, woke with the gathering light, much to her irritation. She had been dreading this meeting for nearly a week. It seemed ludicrous to admit it; she was, after all, the one with the final say on whatever decisions were made in her realm. It was just so infuriatingly difficult to get anything done when it came to the council, which included those of direct royal descent and excluded nearly everyone else. In other words, Midna's family.

After what he had put her through, she was loath to sound as if she was excusing any of Zant's actions, but she could almost begin to understand how their behavior had driven him to insanity. There was a reason she'd been adamant about not coming back until she regained her true form, and though that reason was multifaceted as much as any of her motivations, the primary issue was the way the royal line tended to operate.

First, there was the irritating complacency in matters of state; then, in private life, the constant formality that accompanied every occasion, every bath, every _breakfast_. It was like the ceremonial shadow armor Zant himself had worn every waking minute. An attempt to cement status, to appear invincible, important, distinguished, without being anything more than an appearance. For all it did to protect him in the end, that shadow armor might as well have been an empty suit, its owner's dying screams of rage and madness echoing from within the outer shell of his fruitless ambitions.

The memory of those screams made Midna's insides feel hollow, recalling what she'd done.

_He deserved it,_ she reminded herself grimly. _It doesn't matter what Semde thinks; the whole world is better off without that slimy, backstabbing coward. And, anyway, it wasn't like I knew for sure what the shadow magic would do._

Still, she was fully aware that she hadn't killed him by accident either. It wasn't as if she'd attacked blindly: in her fury and with the magic of her ancestors making her feel invincible for the first time since he had cursed her to hideous helplessness, she had wanted his life to end. Not the same thing, perhaps, as wanting to be the one to end it, but the shadows didn't work that way. They did not make that distinction. She lashed out, they obeyed, and suddenly the judgement had been made, the sentence carried out. There was no reversing it—and she wouldn't, even if she had that option.

Today might be the day she would pay. She had known since the moment itself that having killed Zant with her own hands would bear dire consequences, effects she would not even start to feel until she was back dealing with their family once again.

Midna paused outside the entrance to the council meeting hall, one hand hovering over the door handle. The soldiers on either side of the doorway, part of the newly assigned guard (since her return she had been relentlessly doubling security), shifted aside for her with a respectful bow. She disliked making dramatic entrances, but here she was, ten minutes late, and it wasn't like they'd dare start without her. She took in a breath. Held it. Three, two, one.

Flinging both doors open simultaneously, she strode with regal confidence into the hall, spanning its full length in only a few long steps. As she took her seat in the chair of state, at the head of the elaborately carved stone table, her eyes briefly scanned the room and catalogued its occupants.

No Semde; that was a given. Zant's sister had resigned from her council position at the first opportunity. Semde had been firm: she would continue to recognize Midna as the rightful ruler of the Twilight Realm, and would show her all due respect and deference, but she would not serve as royal advisor to her brother's murderer. Midna didn't really see how calling your princess a murderer amounted to respect and deference, but she wasn't about to argue. Semde might be her cousin, but she also was one of the most difficult individuals Midna had ever had the displeasure of dealing with. Ruling in general would be a lot easier without Semde's voice on the council.

"Right," Midna sighed, her voice cutting through the oppressive stillness that lay heavy in the atmosphere. "We are now officially in session. Give me a rundown of affairs in...oh, say the time period since the Sols were restored."

Unsurprisingly, Adrek was the first to stand. He cleared his throat, straightening his cloak and hood of state with one hand, while the other grasped his sheet of notes the instant he caused it to materialize from the ether. As Zant and Semde's older brother, he and his mother Reci had not followed their kin's example in resigning from the council. In Reci's case, this was probably because she, in true royal fashion, never did anything whatsoever. Well, she did actually manage to complain a fair bit about her job, her food, the weather, certain legislative policies, and the difficulty of obtaining servants who heated the bathwater to the right temperature, but that was about it.

Her son, on the other hand, was a little harder to read. This was mostly because he actually seemed to have some sense; though he, like the rest of the council, seemed to prefer talk to action, his words stayed on topic more often, made more rational sense. So far, he had offered no explanation for his continued loyalty, but merely kept on acting as usual and avoiding direct confrontation. When he did speak on the subject of Zant's treachery and consequent demise, it was never for very long, and never in depth. That was fine with Midna: if Adrek didn't feel like bringing up the fact that she, his sovereign, had executed his scheming little brother when his little brother's schemes to permanently overthrow her sovereignty had gone a bit sideways, then she certainly wouldn't force him to. After all, she didn't suffer from a lack of things to brood about. One less was a plus in her book.

"My synopsis is as follows," Adrek announced. "At an unspecified time on what is commonly estimated to have been the fifth day of the month Ithras, in the year—"

"Can you please—could you just summarize?" Midna interrupted, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers. Patience. Patience was the key; information was the door; peace in her realm would be the reward. Ancestors, she was sick of this already.

"Certainly," Adrek replied. A slight pause. "Would you like the full synopsis on your desk later?"

"That's fine; thank you, Councilor Adrek." Patience. Information. Peace in the realm.

"It is my honor to serve, your Majesty. My synopsis in brief is as follows. At the moment when the Sols were restored, many of the Twili who had been cursed regained their former minds and bodies. Most experienced a period of extreme disorientation, during which time there were several reports of a...er, an individual clad in...green, your Highness, and carrying a shining sword. He is rumored to have been a light-dweller who was somehow able, through magic or some other means, to exist in physical form while here in our realm.

"These accounts can be chalked up to hallucination or even deliberate falsehood, but I would advise your Majesty to consider the fact that they originated from many different sources who were not in contact with one another during the time when the event allegedly occurred."

"Thank you, Councilor; I will look into it. Continue." Midna had been expecting this, but hadn't exactly prepared an explanation for the council. Now that the time had come, she decided to feign ignorance until the matter was forgotten.

Her working cover story was that she had been held personally by Zant, who had used forbidden black sorcery to obtain the power to sustain his true form in the light world, and she had killed him in order to escape. This part wasn't too far from the truth. She had not, however, told them about Ganondorf or her curse; she had not mentioned Link or Zelda or what they had sacrificed. It was just easier doing it that way, even having to watch out for the potential holes in her story, than to attempt to explain to the council how she and a light-dweller had embarked on an adventure spanning both dimensions to save them all from a problem even bigger than a power-mad member of the family. Zant's betrayal and the loss of the Sols alone had almost been too much for them to wrap their heads around.

"That's it, your Highness, about the light-dweller, anyway," Adrek replied, slightly hesitant. "Should I move on to current affairs as they stand in the realm?"

"That would be nice." Despite her efforts, a slight sarcastic edge crept into her tone.

At this, Midna caught a slight flash of motion further down the table and, glancing in that direction, met with the amused stare of her uncle, Jesdan. She had to swiftly look away in order to avoid grinning. A few moments later, as Adrek continued speaking, she saw him subtly roll his eyes. This movement was obviously directed towards her, as no one in the room besides the two of them possessed a sense of humor or irony.

Jesdan was the only member of her family she could actually manage to tolerate outside council meetings, and as such, was the only one she'd ever had anything close to a real relationship with. Short and skinny with a great unruly mop of hair and a permanent grin plastered across his angular features, he was possessed of an odd goofball charm that was somewhat endearing, if occasionally annoying. All Twili had hair in shades of red, usually varying from orange to auburn. Jesdan, on the other hand, appeared as if his head was on fire. Also unlike most Twili, he had a slight beard which added roughness to the lower half of his face and gave him the appearance of a scruffy rogue rather than the experienced councilman he was expected to be at his age.

This impression was an accurate one, as Jesdan had only been in active service on the council for two years. Since the commencement of his marriage (rather late in life by their family's standards) to Lytha, a change had seemed to take place in his attitude. Then there was his completely unprecedented insistence on his wife's admission to the council, a matter that had caused no little consternation when it was first proposed.

Before she became the first ever member of the council with not a drop of royal blood in her veins, Lytha had been a farmer. She and a slightly younger Jesdan had first met in the palace kitchens, where he had taken to conferring with the chefs while he experimented with his own recipes, and she had been delivering her produce for years. It was a long time before he was able to break the shell of aloof reserve which had seemed from the beginning to set her apart from the rest of the world, but his particular cheerful brand of stubbornness had apparently won out in the end. So far he had been the only one to do so—Midna had known the woman for almost half a decade and still wasn't sure what to make of her.

"...common set of problems found in every region," Adrek was saying. "Along with loss of property all around, there have been a few issues specifically affecting the small farming communities in the southeast. Crops were unable to be planted this spring due to damages sustained over the past year, when they withered due to lack of tending and light from the Sols, which, as we all know, had been removed from their rightful places, cutting off the flow of energy in the entire realm.

"While our capitol itself has yet to feel the effects of this sudden famine, due to our provisional stores kept by in case of events like this one, the situation in the rest of the land is more urgent."

"We need a way to feed all these people, and fast," Midna summarized with a quick nod of understanding, ignoring the tight knot of panic that kept trying to draw threads of her reason and self-control into its web. This, too, she had anticipated—she just hadn't expected it to be this _bad_. Either that, or she hadn't even been willing to think about it.

"Your Majesty," Lytha murmured.

All heads in the room turned in the direction of the tall, wraithlike Twili sitting at the far end of the table, who in turn regarded the onlookers impassively with iris-less orange eyes. Such was the pull of her voice alone, which throbbed in quiet cadences below normal speaking volume, yet seemed to carry farther than a shout. Privately, Midna found this—and everything else about her—unsettling.

"Yes, Councilor?" Midna nodded, giving her permission to speak.

"Perhaps we in the palace could share some of our provisions with the common people. I propose a rationing system—"

There was a sound of protest from Reci's general direction. Lytha continued speaking as if she had not heard.

"—where a certain amount of nonperishable goods is allotted for each member of the population until the current situation abates somewhat. I am sure there will be objections to this temporary measure, so I leave it to your Majesty's judgement to decide the best course of action."

"Oh, Lytha, you _would_ be the one to speak up for the common folk. After all, you were one of them, weren't you?" Reci put in. Her breathy little voice carried a hint of false indulgence and bucketloads of very real disdain.

There was a beat of silence in the wake of that remark; all the while, Reci stared down her nose at Lytha, who remained expressionless as ever. Then Lytha spoke, quietly and steadily.

"I still am, Councilor."

Midna raised an eyebrow, impressed. Reci snorted loudly and opened her mouth to deliver a rejoinder.

"Okay, that's enough," Midna cut in, waving aside her aunt's petulant glare. "Councilor Reci, if you're worried about the kind of food you'll be stuck eating, I can assure you that the wellbeing of the people is more important. I agree with Councilor Lytha. We'll start sending both food and relief workers to the provinces. Someone also needs to supervise this project and make sure all the goods reach their respective destinations. Any volunteers?"

"If I may, your Majesty," said Lytha, "I would be happy to undertake this responsibility myself, but I feel that the people would benefit from direct contact with their sovereign, so that she might offer herself to them as a guiding light and reassuring presence during this trying period. Might you consider setting out alongside the supplies and stopping in each village to greet your subjects in person?"

"Hm," Jesdan frowned. "You know, that's a pretty good idea. I'm definitely in favor."

"Your Majesty, I'm not sure—" Adrek began.

"Well of course she's not going!" Reci huffed. "A princess belongs in her palace, _ruling_. Not gallivanting all over the realm, patting village brats on the head and giving them the food off her plate, the clothes off her back. What a ridiculous notion!"

That settled it. At the mention of leaving the palace, Midna had felt a stir of hope begin to swirl beneath her breastbone: she had lately begun to find the place oppressive. Since her recent epiphany about what shattering the mirror had really meant, she'd been feeling not only hollow, but restless. She had given everything for this world; why not go out and see for herself in sharp clarity what it was she'd so readily sacrificed her own happiness to preserve? Now, with Reci so vehemently against it, Midna was fairly sure of the proposal's worth.

"I'm going," she said, standing up. "What's more, I'm leaving tonight."

"I'm not certain that's wise," Lytha cautioned. "If I may, I advise your Majesty to take at least a week to prepare before departing, or chances are that both you and whoever will rule in your absence will be inadequately prepared."

"Okay, then you do it," said Midna.

"I beg your Majesty's pardon?"

"You rule in my absence," she clarified. "That's okay, right, Jesdan? For someone who isn't a royal to be regent?"

"Don't look at me; you're the boss. I've got no idea how these things go," Jesdan shrugged. "But I think whoever you nominate is fine. And if anyone's up to the job, it's my girl here."

Jesdan's girl didn't seem to agree, but she set her mouth firmly and replied, "I will be honored to accept any responsibility your Majesty sees fit to assign."

"Great, then that's settled," Midna nodded. "Now, if no one's got anything else to say—"

Adrek cleared his throat and shuffled his papers; Midna ignored him and plowed on.

"—then I'm going to go back to my apartments and pack. Dismissed."

With that, the Twilight Princess stepped away from the table and left the hall of council as quickly as she'd come.

* * *

_A/N: __I hope this chapter comes as an improvement in quality from the last one, which was frankly not my best work. I was just trying to give you guys something after the last update delay, and I did need to get in some of the information. Sorry for the huge number of OC's introduced in this chapter! I know OC's aren't everyone's favorite to read about, but each of them will end up playing their own important role in the story to come. I really have had fun planning it all out. I even did little sketches of each of Midna's family. (Shhhhh, what do you mean it's just because I enjoy drawing Twili?)_

_The canon is not exactly clear on Zant's relationship to Midna, but what it does say is that the ruler of the Twili is elected from the members of the royal family, which to me says that Zant was related to her in some way. In this fic, he's her cousin. I took some necessary liberties and filled in what the game doesn't tell us about the Twili's system of government, having the remaining members of the royal line serve as the elected member's advisors._

_Next chapter will focus on Link as he tries to get Princess Zelda's support for his undertaking. __I've decided to move to a once-per-week update schedule to allow for things like wifi problems and times when I just don't have the necessary time or inspiration, so the official timetable will be Saturday, August 9. This doesn't mean I won't possibly update before then; it just means I won't feel guilty if I can't or don't do so. Now I just need to work on making my author's notes shorter..._


	5. Wisdom's Quest

_Chapter Four: Wisdom's Quest_

* * *

The letter ended up arriving sooner than expected. Link had almost forgotten about it by the time it appeared, barely two weeks after he had visited the castle's sole fully restructured wing and spoken with Zelda's secretary. He had not expected an immediate reply, but, having applied as soon as possible for an audience with the princess, had settled back patiently in anticipation of a long wait, immersing himself in the idyllic revolution that was life in a sleepy little village which had recently woken up.

Lately, Ordon was not so much galloping forward into modern life as it was slowly but steadily loping over ground that most other areas of civilization had already covered. It followed its own pace as much as it always had. Yet, being home to two of the most prominent members of the group which had almost single-handedly saved Hyrule, it could not remain long isolated from public notice. It wasn't as if any visitor ever stayed long—Ordon really didn't have much to offer in the way of tourism besides a taste of ranch life and the best (in fact, the only) goat cheese in the country—but there was now a constant trickle of newcomers flowing in and out that had never before been present. Most of these were rich townsfolk, come to gawk at the provincial settlement which had ended up producing some of the land's finest heroes. A few were a little more out of the ordinary.

It was one such caller, a knight of the princess's royal guard, who delivered Link's mail in place of the regular Postman (who had come anyway out of curiosity, peering raptly over Link's shoulder with boggled eyes as the latter slit the thick parchment envelope and unfolded the message within). The letter was not only signed by the princess, but written and addressed in Zelda's own hand. She had composed the entire thing herself, written directly to him to say that, as Hyrule's own Hero and savior, he had no need to remain on the general list for the full waiting period, but must come as her personal guest as soon as more urgent matters had been fully resolved.

This had resulted in his application being bumped up the waiting list by almost a month, an advantage which Link felt was slightly unfair. He would have preferred to wait in the same line as the rest of her subjects. Still, he didn't see what else he could do but accept privileged treatment, having been provided with such a cordial invitation from Hyrule's reigning monarch and a specific date and time for his "visit."

And so it was that Link found himself outside Zelda's private apartments the very next day, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot and trying to stay focused on his reason for being there. While he waited to be admitted, he repeatedly ran over the items on his mental list, starting with the general and moving on to more specific sub-categories. Reminding himself once again that he was not there because he already had a plan, but out of his need for one.

After not too lengthy a wait, the guard outside the chamber poked his head inside for a moment, then held the heavy wooden door open with a wordless nod. He could go in now. The man remained there long enough for Link to enter, then bowed his way out, shutting the door behind him.

Princess Zelda of Hyrule sat at her desk, writing busily. Three tall pyramids of books sat on the floor to her left, the farthest side away from the unlit hearth, and several similar stacks lined the back of the room. Nearly every volume appeared to be heavily damaged. There were some with pages charred around the edges, others with leather covers stained and swollen by water, still others caked in a strange grey dirt that might have been rock dust. Most of the room had been converted into a makeshift study, with piles of unused scrolls lying beside ones already written on; a neatly stacked collection of used pens and ink bottles was sitting by the door. The temperature in the room was absolutely freezing, but Zelda did not appear to feel it. As Link approached, her moving hand did not slow; her eyes never left the page.

"Princess." Link gave the standard greeting of a knight to his monarch, sinking to one knee on the icy floor.

"Rise, Hero," replied Zelda. "It is far too cold for kneeling. I sometimes have a fire, but never in here. The books might catch alight."

"Thank you, your Highness." He stood.

"Please, sit down." She waved the hand which was not writing in a vague southwesterly direction. "There's a chair in the corner; you can pull it up beside me. May I ask your reason for coming?"

Link crossed the room to the corner she indicated, where a battered suit of armor, salvaged from the ruins of the former structure, loomed over the chair he was supposed to be retrieving. He eyed it warily as he scooted the wooden seat towards the center of the room. The problem with Hyrule Castle's standing armor was that each suit looked exactly like most Darknuts he had fought. There was no telling the difference until it moved—and promptly started trying to kill you. Though Link thought it extremely unlikely that any of these monsters still remained after Ganon's defeat, as far as he was concerned, you couldn't be too careful.

"I needed your advice," Link admitted after seating himself a respectful distance away from Zelda's desk. "There's something I've been wondering about, and I thought you might know more than most people."

"I do know more than most people, generally," she answered dryly, the words straightforward and untouched by any form of conceit. "It depends on which subject, though."

And here it was. Moment of truth. Link breathed in and exhaled twice, deeply, before he spoke.

"The Mirror of Twilight."

Zelda's pen froze abruptly in the middle of a word and hovered motionless above the page. Without its scribbling, the room suddenly seemed too quiet.

"Link..." Her voice held a warning in its tone, a note of wariness that hadn't been there before.

"I'm not trying to undo Midna's decision," he said hurriedly. "I'm just trying to find out—I mean, I was wondering if you knew—if that was the only portal."

She took a few moments to reply, staring straight ahead with a pensive expression, as if deciding how best to answer. Finally, she set down her pen and turned to face him fully.

"Hero," she sighed, "You have done both myself and this land a great service. However, I am still bound above all things to protect my kingdom, and the rest of the world the goddesses created, against all threat. You understand that this duty comes before any debt I may owe to my fellow guardians of order."

"I do understand," Link deferred, bowing his head. Disappointment clawed at his insides, his heart seeming to sink below the stones at their feet, but he forced his shoulders to stay straight, reminding himself that he had known this might happen. No matter what burdens held him down, Hyrule was more important.

"So I need to be aware of your reasons for seeking these answers before I tell you anything," the princess finished.

Link lifted his eyes slightly, questioningly, until they met Zelda's. Her deep grey irises were steady and solemn, yet a slight hint of amusement stirred them as he opened his mouth with hopeful hesitance.

"As I said, I'm not trying to reverse what Midna did," he qualified. "It's just been bothering me, ever since she said goodbye to us, how final it was. I guess...we'd been through so much that it seems surreal to have it all end so abruptly. I've tried, but I can't—"

"Accept that we are never going to see the Twilight Princess again," she completed his sentence for him.

"Yeah," he murmured, letting his eyes fall again to the floor.

"I understand what you are feeling, Link," Zelda addressed him gently. "But you must know that Midna made her own decision when she closed the path between dimensions, and she did it in the interest of both worlds. It was her right as the true ruler of the Twili to destroy the mirror, and it is not for us to decide in hindsight whether her choice was the wisest one under the circumstances. You must understand that in doing what she did, the Twilight Princess prevented anything like the recent war from ever occurring again."

Link shook his head. "Not according to Ganondorf."

"Ganondorf," she murmured, her gaze wandering again. "He may have been lying, and he may not have. We cannot know until the crucial hour comes upon us whether it will truly spell our doom. Peril or peace; the coin is still spinning, and we have no way of knowing until it falls which side it will land on."

"No, we don't," he agreed. "But we can be vigilant. I know what Midna was trying to do, your Highness. The mirror was...unnatural."

"But you hope to find a more congruous means of egress." The look she fixed him with now was unreadable.

"Perhaps," he agreed cautiously. "You see, I've been doing some research lately into the separate dimensions. Not just the Twilight, but the Sacred Realm as well. Did you know that when Ganon was first sentenced to death, it was for trying to take over the place where the Triforce rested? If the rulers of the kingdom had not been warned in time, he might have succeeded. Then, this time, it's the Twilight...does that parallel seem significant to you?"

"Naturally," the princess nodded, still with that sphinxlike expression.

"Well, some rare versions of the ancient texts say that the hero of legend actually prevented Ganondorf's invasion of the Sacred Realm by being the means through which he entered it in the first place. Apparently, a door of some sort was opened by the hero, and Ganondorf followed him to the other side. The rest is pretty muddled, and none of the stories agree on exactly what happened. It's uncertain, but I think the hero was able to defeat Ganon in an alternate timeline, then return to his own time and warn the current ruler about what would happen if they failed to protect the portal."

"I've heard the stories," Zelda confirmed. "No one alive can verify whether this actually occurred, but I have spoken with the Spirits of Light, and..."

She trailed off, fingering the edge of her paper as she stared into space. "Why are you telling me this? You must think that some kind of portal still exists."

"I don't know," he shrugged. "But I did enter a kind of portal at the temple in the woods...a door through time, at least. I opened it with the Master Sword. That's how I managed to enter the Temple of Time even after it was destroyed."

"Your point being?"

"What if that portal had another function...before it was sealed?" Link spoke quickly now, in a rush to get the words out before she ended the conversation or assumed he was crazy. "What if it was once a gateway to the Sacred Realm? And what if that wasn't the only gateway from this world to another?"

"It wasn't." She was frowning at him, hard. "There was the Mirror, but it was destroyed."

"No, the Mirror didn't exist until the goddesses gave it to the Sages," he corrected. "Lanayru told me the story. The ancestors of the Twili tried to take over the Sacred Realm—proof that a portal must have existed back then, too—and were later banished to the Twilight Realm as punishment. So...what if the Mirror was only created out of necessity? Zant definitely seemed to be able to travel back and forth without it. What if there were another entrance to the Twilight, which for some reason wasn't accessible during the time of the Ancient Sages? What if we could somehow locate that entrance now?"

"What indeed?" Zelda countered. "Would you attempt to cross over? And if you succeeded? What then?"

"I don't know," Link conceded. The tiniest measure of the enormous doubt inside him leaked through and colored his voice with desperation. "At this point, I don't even know what I'd do with a portal if I had one right here and now. I just know I have to do something. I've been sitting around for three months, just trying and trying to accept what's happened, and I can't anymore. I just can't."

Once again, Zelda said nothing for a long time. She stared at the parchment scroll before her, as with the tips of her fingers she repeatedly rolled and unrolled the edge. When she again resumed talking, it was on a seemingly unrelated topic.

"I'm trying to restore all these books," the princess stated, gesturing to the multiple stacks surrounding her. "When the castle was destroyed, you see, it took most of the library with it. Some were buried in the rubble. Others burned. Some even fell into the waterways and washed down to the city. Citizens were picking pages out of the sewers and the fountain for weeks, and there were several committees formed whose purpose was to to salvage as many documents as they could. Everything they found is now in this room. This room is all that's left of centuries' worth of priceless knowledge. The rest has been lost forever."

As she spoke, Zelda's sorrow became tangible, in her voice and in her eyes as she gazed on all that was left of her kingdom's printed history.

"So I'm doing what I can," she concluded. "I'm taking what's left and copying it onto scroll after scroll, deciphering the parts that are almost unreadable. It's tedious work, but it's something that almost any scribe could do without too much trouble."

"So why are you doing it yourself?" Link wondered. "You can't have that much time on your hands."

"I don't," she confirmed, smiling slightly. "I'm doing this in my free time, between hearing citizens' concerns and supervising the construction and restoration committees. I'm doing it because I want to, because it matters to me. I guess it's because, now that the war's finally behind us, I find that I still need a special purpose, something beyond my ordinary duties. I'm telling you this because I think you're the same, Hero. You need a quest."

Link stared at her for a second or two, a small smile of his own beginning to tug at the corners of his lips.

"You're right," he said softly. "That's just it. Thank you, your Highness."

"Don't thank me," Zelda laughed. "I'm not behind this quest of yours at all. But I suppose I'm not against it either. At any rate, I will tell you this much."

She ripped off a piece from the scroll's lower right corner and scribbled a few lines on it with her pen. Then she folded the scrap in half and handed it to Link, who took her offering gratefully and tucked it into one of the leather pouches on his belt.

"How you use that is up to you," she said. "But do as it tells you, and you should be able to find out something useful."

"Thank you, Princess," Link repeated, falling again to one knee and bowing his head with gratitude.

"You are very welcome, Hero," Zelda answered, inclining her own head graciously. "It is the least I can offer someone who has done so much in Hyrule's service."

As Link made to leave the chamber, he hesitated, turning back to face her with one hand on the door handle.

"Princess?"

"Yes?" she answered, preoccupied once again with her task.

"I have some books at home that you might not have copies of here. Would you like me to bring them by sometime so you can add them to your records?"

Pausing for a moment in her writing, Zelda looked up at him with her largest smile yet.

"Please do," she replied emphatically.

* * *

_A/N: Yay, new chapter's all ready and posted! At least, I hope it's ready. It's very late right now and half my brain has already gone to bed. The remaining half thinks this stuff is post-worthy, and since I'm not good at waiting when I'm excited, I'm gonna go along with it and hope it doesn't change its mind in the morning._

_Got some more plot for you this time. I hope my premise for this story is becoming clearer, without giving too much away yet. Also, Zelda talks coins again. How does anyone in that universe even know what a coin is? All the currency I've ever seen them use are Rupees! We'll see later what she wrote. All I'll say is that the specific time of year during which these events are occurring will turn out to be very important._

_Next chapter should be in by next weekend; this one will be Midna again, as she prepares for her trip, but less boring than it sounds. I'm hoping it's becoming obvious that her narrative and Link's will run pretty much parallel in opposite directions until they eventually converge. Finally, I'd like to thank those who have reviewed, most prominently "Duke Serkol" and PhoenixCaptain, for their amazingly prompt and thorough feedback. You make me incredibly nervous about each chapter I post, and that's a good thing._


	6. Trace Evidence

_Chapter Five: Trace Evidence_

* * *

Midna prepared for her journey in a flying rush, throwing necessary items into bags without a care for organization or accessibility. They steadily formed a chaotic soup, layers upon layers which would be impossible to separate without completely dislodging each component. Some part of her brain knew she'd regret this later when, five days into her trip, she couldn't find something and was forced to dump all her luggage out and sort it properly, but the rest frankly didn't give a flying Keese. Her pulse was quick and loud in her ears. She was about to leave, to finally quit the palace which had begun to feel like a prison. Who wouldn't be in a rush to escape after three months in a carved stone jail?

_You won't find him out there,_ a silent voice sang in her ear.

_Shut up,_ she told it fiercely.

Probably a mistake; when you hear voices that aren't there, that's one thing, but answer them back and you're really in a mess. Well, if she had any flying Keese left, she'd drop them right in the "great, now I'm going insane" jar. Unfortunately, between the "Link" jar and the "famine in the realm" jar, she was fresh out.

"Zant, next time you decide to borrow my kingdom," she said aloud, between gritted teeth, "At least give it back in one piece."

She was doing it again, Midna realized. Whenever she felt particularly overwhelmed or otherwise vulnerable, without fail, she immediately started in on the sarcastic diatribe. Once the mocking voice in her head (again with the voices; what was the matter with her?) got started, it never shut up until she felt more in control, or was somehow blindsided so completely that it shattered her protective frame of mind. It was a bad habit, but probably not her worst failing. No, that would be making monumental, life-changing decisions in the space of two seconds, then worrying afterwards about the consequences. Zant. The mirror. When would she learn her lesson?

It was too late for her to wonder if these had been necessary sacrifices or terrible mistakes. Both were over and done with. She'd just have to deal with it.

"That's the way the cookie crumbles," she muttered, flinging an extra set of robes into a satchel which was already stuffed to bursting with a detritus of clothing and council briefs. It didn't really matter how full the bag was, as she'd just dematerialize the whole thing after she was through, but it made it easier to keep her stuff in some kind of container instead of trying to break down and store each item individually. It was the same method she'd once used to store Link's items, specifically the looser ones like arrows and bombs.

While she was shaking it, something in the outer robe's pocket shifted slightly, falling onto the floor with a soft thunk and rolling underneath her bed. Midna finished shoving down the satchel's contents and buckling the straps before bending down to retrieve the item. As she peered into the cavernous dark space, a slight, ruddy glow winked back at her; she reached for it, closing her fist around the small, diamond-shaped object and bringing it close to her face as she sat up to examine her findings. Her breath hitched in her throat.

The shadow crystal burned red-orange against her palm, its energy, as always, seeming slightly off-kilter with its surroundings. She hadn't realized she had left it in the pocket of that particular cloak, or that seeing it again would cause an acid tide of regret to rise up and choke her with such abrupt intensity. Ancestors. She couldn't bear it, but she would. She had to.

Midna dropped the crystal like it was made of molten lava and stood up, brushing her hands compulsively against her skirt. No more of this. She was packing, not remembering.

"Your Majesty?" A slight tap sounded against the front door to her apartments. "Is everything all right in there?"

"Fine, Riltu," she called back, closing her eyes for a moment and attempting to control her still-shaky breathing. "Did you have a message for me?"

"A messenger, Your Majesty. Should I send them in?"

"Yes; I'll be there in a moment." Midna wove together the last trailing strands of her composure and went to unlock the door. Straightening her headpiece with one hand, she pressed the other against the door's center. It flared with blue light at her touch, the energy spreading outwards, snaking along the pathway of the runes which covered the stone slab until the whole thing lit up and withdrew into the upper doorjamb.

Midna's regular chamber guard and the messenger she was escorting stood in the hallway outside; the smaller Twili bowed deeply and waddled forward. The soldier did not move, but lingered in place, one armored glove reflexively hovering above the pair of long, rune-covered blades strapped to her back.

Thank you, Riltu. That will be all," Midna nodded to her guard, who saluted and stepped back a pace. She then turned to the messenger and indicated that she might speak.

"Greetings, Twilight Princess," the servant squeaked, bowing once again. "I bring you the highest regards of my mistress, Twilight Councilor Reci."

"Knew it," Midna muttered beneath her breath.

"My mistress wishes me to deliver her notes from the meeting for your Majesty's perusal, and to beg that your Majesty reconsider your intent to set out this evening. She bid me remind you that the soonest a proper entourage can be mounted and ready is in a week's time and advises that you wait until then, at the very least, though she dearly wishes you would refrain from leaving at all."

"Duly noted," Midna replied, silently cursing her aunt for once again feeling the need to advise her outside the council. Still, she couldn't say she was exactly surprised. "Thank you...what was your name?"

"Tatni, your Majesty." Another sweeping bow, this one so low that the squat Twili's nose almost touched the floor. "And will there be no reply?"

"I suppose there will," the Twilight Princess sighed. "Tell your mistress that, one, I don't need a 'proper entourage,' just a small company; two, I'm already packed; and three, I'm leaving in two hours or less, and there's nothing she can do to stop me."

"Yes, your Majesty. Would you like me to use those exact words, or would you prefer that I paraphrase?"

"Whichever you like," Midna allowed, feeling a stab of pity for the messenger. She didn't particularly enjoy being Reci's superior, let alone her servant. The least she could do was allow her reply to be put more delicately than it had originally been; maybe then the poor little Twili would suffer less of her mistress's ire.

"It shall be done as your Highness desires," Reci's messenger responded, sounding highly relieved. With one more formal obeisance, she trotted away.

While she waited for her bodyguard to return from escorting the messenger from this wing of the palace, Midna tucked Reci's papers into a pocket of her cloak and made a final check of the bags that littered her bed and floor. She was pretty sure she'd gotten everything, but it was hard to tell for certain with the luggage in its current state.

She wasn't sure if the resurgence of intense irritation now dominating her mental state was an improvement to her mood or not. On the plus side, it had gotten easier to tuck the more painful thoughts back into place; on the other hand, she was now dealing with the sudden and persistent urge to punch a wall. She reminded herself that Reci couldn't actually do anything to counteract her decision, but an uneasy feeling in the back of her mind told her that her aunt might just try anyway.

The regular tap of footsteps in the hall alerted her to Riltu's return; she quickly raised her arms. The satchels briefly hung suspended in midair before breaking apart into fragments of shadow, just as the edge of the soldier's helmet appeared around the corner.

"I'm ready," she announced briskly, spinning to face the still-open doorway.

No answer. The helmet hovered in place for a second or two, unresponsive, before the face itself finally appeared. Its expression was grim. Midna knew then, with an accompanying internal scream of frustration, that whatever Riltu had to say, it wasn't good.

"Princess..." her bodyguard began uneasily.

"Great. Wonderful. Something's happened, hasn't it?"

Riltu regarded her boots with studious intensity. "You'd better come see for yourself," she said finally.

* * *

The royal stables, as proclaimed by a large plaque affixed to their outer gate, were a fairly new addition to the palace made by the previous ruler late in his reign. This ruler—Midna's grandfather, the venerated Twilight King Alzeth—had made sure that these closely adjoined the royal apartments so he could access them easily whenever he pleased. All in all, a trip from one to the other took less than five minutes by floating platform.

Five minutes for Midna to fume in silence and wonder irately what was the matter this time. As if the other member of her personal guard suddenly falling ill wasn't enough—she had meant both Pirz and Riltu to accompany her, but had been informed upon inquiring after the former's whereabouts that he was currently on sick leave. Then the officials in charge of the supplies had decided to be difficult and insist that, since some of the perishables had recently gone missing (Midna knew with one look at Jesdan's face exactly who was responsible), every iota of the rest needed to be thoroughly catalogued before they could be accurately divided and packaged. Finding Pirz's replacement had taken nearly an hour; the second issue set them back three more. At this point, any further problems were simply icing on the cake. Midna was even starting to think that Lytha may have been right about waiting. Despite this, she remained stubbornly determined to see her plan through, even if it meant leaving in the middle of the night: a dangerous hour in any land, downright perilous on the wild Twilit Plains.

Upon entering the stables, Midna followed one of the royal grooms towards the building's rear, passing stall after stall of sarqui—giant reptilian steeds which somewhat resembled the horses of the light world, but with elongated necks and glowing manes of either blue or crimson. From each of these compartments echoed the rattling hisses and shrieks which were the sarqui's own form of language, along with the thudding shock of hooves on stone. The whole place was an absolute bedlam of ceaseless noise and motion, filled with a sea of tossing manes, leathery backs arching skywards, the restless snapping of a thousand flinty teeth. All except the largest stall on the end, from which nothing issued but a morbid silence.

"She just dropped out of nowhere," exclaimed the bewildered stable hand, pausing in front of the entrance. "One minute she was fine, and the next..."

He trailed off with an almost imperceptible shudder and reverted to the words Riltu had used. "You'd better see for yourself."

Midna thought she knew already what she would see in that stall when the door swung open, yet the foresight still did not come close to preparing her for the scene that lay within.

Well, perhaps the scene itself wasn't too much worse than what she imagined. After all, she'd witnessed quite a few horrors in the past year. Strictly speaking, it was the smell. An acid sourness mingled with a horrible metallic tang and the warm, cloying sweetness of decay, all overlaid with the one indescribable odor which every living creature is hardwired to recognize. The entire compartment reeked of death. Expressionless, Midna took a step forward, eyes fixed on the stall's contents.

The remains of her own mount, the finest steed in the royal stables, lay twisted and lifeless in the rigid, unnatural posture of its final contortions. Thick pools of an unnameable liquid covered the length of the stall's floor and stained its filthy flame-colored mane. It had clearly died recently, and in agony. This was the sarquus she had first learned to ride, the one who had first bitten her and taught her a healthy respect for the wild power of these animals. This was the one she had planned to ride all the way from the gates of the Twilight Palace to the wild lands and back.

Heedless of the edges of her cloak trailing in the muck and slightly lightheaded from a combination of rage and nausea, Midna knelt beside the head and examined the glassy eyes. She almost reached out and placed a hand on the dead beast's scaly side, but withdrew at the last minute.

"Riltu," she said softly. A stir of motion at her back let her know her bodyguard had sprung into action with no need of a further command. There was a rustling as the soldier rummaged in the feed trough on the back wall, then a grunt of simultaneous satisfaction and disgust.

"Your Majesty." Riltu's glove extended itself into her field of vision, holding something out to her. In the hollow of the guard's hand nestled a few dark shards, telltale remnants. Those shards seemed too small and innocuous to have done this much harm. Those shards also meant that her trip had gone from a well-justified whim to a matter of absolute necessity. Those little red-black shards changed everything.

"Good work," Midna nodded. She stood up.

"But...your Majesty," stammered the head groom. "Aren't you going to order an investigation? This sarquus was poisoned! Don't you want to know who did it?"

The Twilight Princess smiled mirthlessly. "Oh, believe me, I already know who did this. It's a setback, but nothing more. Now please clean this up, and have another mount saddled for me, if you don't mind."

"B-but, Highness...what for?"

Already halfway to the exit, Midna did not stop. "Didn't you hear?" she called without turning. "I'm leaving tonight!"

* * *

High above, on one of the palace balconies, Twilight Councilor Lytha leaned against the railing and watched the small procession snake its way down the winding stone bridge that led from the very bottom levels of the floating complex to the city below.

In the background, a few musicians coaxed tinkling notes from the strings and keys of their various instruments, elaborately interweaving their gentle melody with a subtle dissonance. It reminded Lytha of the particular beauty of their world's atmosphere, a dark serenity which the artists among their people had been striving to capture since time immemorial, with varying levels of success. Perhaps they who managed best were the ones who were not even consciously trying.

If she focused particularly hard, Lytha could just make out a certain tall, elegant figure riding at the forefront of the company, ahead of the wagons and the soldiers who guarded them. The barest hint of a smile ghosted across the Twilight Councilor's lips. Now there was a prime example of chaos in harmony. She'd left her kingdom to a person she had no reason to trust, with hardly a word of instruction, as if she meant the designated regent to have complete autonomy the entire time she was gone. It was like leaving your house to your neighbor's care without even telling them what to feed your pets. Only their current Twilight Princess would have made such a decision, and made it seem like nothing.

"How's it going, oh mighty regent?"

Lytha sighed almost imperceptibly. And only one person besides the princess herself ever addressed others in such a manner. Two skinny arms engulfed her from behind, almost lifting her off her feet, the position made awkward because of the disparity between her height and that of the arms' owner. In spite of herself, that little smile widened just a little further.

"Jesdan, please. We've talked about this."

"I know we have," her husband replied flippantly. She could almost see him grinning, with a complete lack of repentance, as usual. "Now, a change of subject. What are you going to do first with that unchecked power you have been so recklessly handed on a platter?"

"Not what you'd do, that's for certain," she said reprovingly.

"So no legally abolishing all future council meetings, then." Jesdan drooped with false disappointment, setting her back down, to her relief."Figures."

"If that course of action were at all prudent, then rest assured, our current Twilight Princess would have taken it the minute she came into office," replied Lytha.

Jesdan chuckled, shaking his head. "That's true. But...what about the rumor that's been making the rounds for the past hour? The poisoned sarquus deal. Is that one..."

"It's true," she nodded gravely, turning back to the railing.

"Sounds like a threat to me. Does anyone know who did it?"

Lytha took a moment to answer. Jesdan was miraculously patient, and waited her out without speaking and a minimum of fidgeting while she decided on the words she would use.

"The logical conclusion," she said finally, "Is that one of the royal council or their affiliates is responsible. No one else would have the means or the motive to even come close to what was done today."

"So...one of us, then." For once, he was sober.

"Most likely."

"Does Midna know? Her life could be in danger. Shouldn't someone tell her?"

"I'm confident our princess knows already, more than we do," Lytha said, her eyes fixed keenly on the tiny speck at the head of the group. They had almost disappeared now into the lower regions.

"It could be me," Jesdan speculated with an exaggerated leer. Then he paused. "It could be you," he gasped. "Lytha! How could you?"

She regarded him impassively, one eyebrow curving into a slight arch.

"Okay, I'm going back inside," he laughed. "I'm leaving. Sorry."

In the moments that followed her capricious husband's departure, Lytha tried to hold on to those feelings of amusement (and vague annoyance) left in his wake, but it was no use. Like air bubbles trapped beneath water, they kept rising to the surface and dissipating, displaced by the heavier substance of other thoughts. More important ones, surely, but she wished that they could wait just a little longer. She knew it would be a long time before she'd feel like laughing again.

* * *

_A/N: *casually introduces weird giant horse lizards to the story* So, hopefully, a__ few key points from this chapter will turn up again later in the narrative. Someone's got an agenda which Midna is just now beginning to discover, though the poisoned sarquus is only the tip of the iceberg. Thanks to everyone who's been reading, and to "Duke Serkol" for those fascinating facts about onmyouji in your last review. __I'll see you next chapter (ETA is still this weekend) while Link tries to make sense of Zelda's clue, and ends up seeing a few old friends in the process._

_(Edit: In accordance with concerns expressed by reviewers, which echoed my own, I've cut down on some of the explicit gore in the last few paragraphs and added some lines specifically detailing Midna's emotional reaction. I also added an entire new section to the chapter, there at the end, in order to make several things more clear, not the least of which is how on Farore's green earth those horse lizards were supposed to get down from the floating palace without dying. Voila: convenient plot de—ahem, bridge. No, but seriously, the palace can't be all there is to the Twilight realm, so it follows that those who live up there have some way of getting down. I couldn't really see Twili nobles loading themselves into a cannon City-In-the-Sky style, and over that distance floating platforms would be dangerous, so here's a convenient stone bridge.)_


End file.
